Science Careers Blog

July 16, 2007

Internships Pay, and Pay Again

A survey of employer members of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) suggests that students who do internships often get job offers from those organizations after graduation. NACE announced the results
of the survey last week. The 233 employers said they offered full-time
jobs to nearly two-thirds of their interns, with nearly half of those
accepting. The employers also reported that 3 of 10 new graduates hired
from the class of 2006 had taken part in their internship programs.

Camille
Luckenbaugh, NACE's research director, tells us by e-mail that
almost all (98.3%) of the employers in the survey paid their interns.
Those paid interns earned an average of about $16.00 an hour but,
Luckenbaugh says, science-and technology interns earned a little more. Engineering interns average $17.12 per hour and undergraduate science majors averaged $15.61 per hour, while non-technical majors earned just $15.00 per hour.

NACE
is an organization of university career counselors and industry
human-resources specialists involved in college recruiting for their
companies. So this survey may describe hiring practices of companies
that regularly recruit college grads, and thus may not be typical of
employers overall. Nonetheless, the results suggest that internships
can enhance your post-graduate employment chances and defray a few
expenses in the process.

About this Blog

Get frequent updates from the science-career trenches including advice, opinion, news, funding opportunities, and links to other career-related resources. Our bloggers include Science Careers editors and staff, and select outsiders, including:

Jim Austin, Editor of Science Careers, @SciCareerEditor on Twitter

Elisabeth Pain, Barcelona-based Contributing Editor

Donisha Adams, Science Careers Publications Assistant

Our guest bloggers include:

Dan Albert MD, MS, Founding Director, UW McPherson Eye Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin.